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Keeping Cool About Hot Temperatures

Last year was warmer by 0.04 Celsius, but it was also an El Niño year.

Updated Jan. 19, 2017 8:21 p.m. ET

By now you’ve seen the headline: 2016 was the hottest year on record. The news has been paired with predictions of civilization’s imminent demise. But a closer look at the evidence reveals that the political heat is overwrought—and there’s still no reason to re-engineer the global economy to mitigate small climate fluctuations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced this week that last year was the warmest in the agency’s 137-year series, and that 2016 broke the previous record for the third...